


Just Like Nancy Sinatra Said

by fortunehasgivenup



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Confrontations, F/M, POV Rio (Good Girls), Post-Finale, Season Finale, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 09:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunehasgivenup/pseuds/fortunehasgivenup
Summary: “Are you gonna die?” Marcus asks.Rio smiles at him. “Nah.”He’s got three holes in him, but he’s got shit to do.Bang bang (bang), my baby shot me down.





	Just Like Nancy Sinatra Said

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-finale (and therefore contains spoilers) from Rio’s POV. Can be read as a continuation of my other fic, _Non dedecore aliquid, sed dedecus appetens_ , in that they’re both canon compliant, but it’s not necessary.

Rio’s not sure how he thought this was gonna go.

Not like this, that’s for sure. He swallows, feeling blood slide down his throat the way it does when you have a nosebleed and tip your head back. But there’s more of it, thick and cloying. 

Trust Elizabeth to finally take one of his lessons to heart and try to shoot him in his. 

At least she shot him in the front. He gurgles a laugh as Turner dials 911, puts pressure on the wounds. It fucking hurts, but Rio turns his head until he can see the little alcove that used to be Marcus’ room before he up and moved them last week.

He has no intention of leaving Marcus without a father. 

With that thought fixed in his mind, he passes out.

————

Coming to after spending time under anaesthesia is a trip. It takes Rio a minute to remember why he’s in a hospital bed. 

“Dad?”

Rio tries to turn towards the sound, but hisses in pain when he does.

“Marcus?” It comes out as a croak, barely a sound at all, but Marcus hears and his little head comes into view. He looks terrible, like he hasn’t been sleeping and when he meets Rio’s gaze, he starts to cry.

Dylan steps into view and lifts Marcus into her arms, takes a seat beside the bed. “The nurse should be here in a sec. I don’t dare touch anything.” Her voice is shaky as she strokes Marcus’ back.

The nurse does come bustling in, puts the bed in a partially upright position and helps him drink some water. The doctor will be in later, the nurse says, to explain what they had to do. But the fact that he’s awake is a good sign, apparently. 

By the time the nurse leaves, Marcus’ body has stopped heaving with full body sobs and he’s turned in Dylan’s lap to look at Rio.

“Hey pop,” Rio says, voice a little bit stronger now. Marcus swipes at his cheeks, but it’s not doing much beyond smearing tears and snot around. Rio can’t lift his fucking hand to do it for him, but Dylan grabs some tissues and cleans him up.

“Are you gonna die?” Marcus asks, eyes welling up all over again.

Rio smiles at him. “Nah.”

He’s got three holes in him, but he’s got shit to do.

_Bang bang (bang), my baby shot me down._

———————

It’s weeks before he gets out of the hospital and by then, Turner’s gone. The bureau has quietly dropped the case against him, something Gretchen tells him the first time she visits him in the hospital.

“Good,” Rio says, able to sit up by that point.

That weird, twisted sense of pride is in effect all over again. Elizabeth finally stood up, finally got her hands dirty. But fuck if she didn’t make the same mistake she’s made over and over and over again. Half measures will get you nowhere. 

She should have put one in his head if she didn’t want him coming back to haunt her ass. 

Rio learned that lesson at a young age, taught to him by one of the older boys in the neighbourhood in the bloody aftermath of an escalating feud. _If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared._ The kid had said it with different words, but the meaning is the same. 16th century Florence or 21st century Detroit - it all operates on the same laws. 

He doesn’t know that she’s entirely unaware of his survival until he’s well enough to be moving on his own without help and he celebrates by swinging by her place to wait in her kitchen for her to come back from grocery shopping.

This time, she doesn’t drop the groceries when she sees him sitting at the island, but it’s close. She pales and sets the bags down.

“How -“ her voice falters.

Rio just looks at her. “You missed.” 

She swallows and takes a seat. “Turner?”

“You gave him too much credit, darling.” He lets some of the venom he’s feeling drip into the word and sees her stiffen even further. “I owe him a favour, but that’s a small price to pay for still breathing. I wonder what he’ll want.” He gives her a pointed look. He’s got a guess. So does she.

He laughs. “I told you, Elizabeth. Again and again.” 

“Told me what?”

“You gotta get your hands dirty.”

“I did,” she hisses, leaning towards him. “I shot you, didn’t I?”

Rio smiles. “And you fucked that up too. You should have ended it.”

“You’re mad that I didn’t kill you?” Elizabeth recoils, eyes wide. “You’re insane.”

“You ever seen Star Wars?” He asks.

The change in topic throws her, but she nods.

“You know how they got that whole thing where the apprentice kills the master?” She nods again. “If you’d done what I taught you, you would have finished the job and you’d at least be worthy of my spot. Now, I’m just disappointed in you. I thought you had something, but I guess I was wrong.”

That gets her hackles up. “I do have something.”

“Then why are you still here?” Rio gestures around. When she doesn’t answer, he bites the inside of his cheek. "That’s what I thought. How’s printing money going?”

Her shock at his knowledge is written all over her face. Being in the hospital hadn’t deprived him of his eyes and ears all around the city. He’s got his network running so cleanly that his injuries didn’t slow it down. Rio’s never been a lone wolf, but he thinks that Elizabeth might have forgotten this little fact. If he hadn’t given explicit instructions to leave her alone, she’d be dead already.

“Your girls got what it takes?” Rio presses the issue, well aware of the answer. They don’t. Elizabeth knows it too, but she’s going to keep pushing them and pushing them until they crack. “They’re not like you, Elizabeth. They’re good people.”

“I’m a good person,” she insists.

Rio chuckles, shaking his head. “You’re a lot of things, but a good person ain’t one of them anymore. Good people don’t rob stores. Good people don’t ask for criminals to give them more and more opportunities to be bad. That was you, remember? Did they want that?”

“We had to -“

He cuts her off. “What, you’re the only ones with problems?” Rio studies her face. She looks away, then seems to realize that she’s showing weakness and meets his gaze again. “You think everything’s going great in every house on your street? What about the next one over? What about in the other parts of town where people don’t get to live in houses? You can’t lie to yourself forever, Elizabeth. Eventually, you’ll figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” 

Rio stands and walks towards her. His hand snakes out and grabs her by the back of her neck and he pulls her close. He doesn’t have a gun under her chin this time, not physically, but it’s still there - an invisible threat. A promise.

He looks at Elizabeth. There’s bags under her eyes that she’s hiding with makeup. Tension around her mouth and eyes. 

“That loving people doesn’t make you a good person, doesn’t erase the bad shit that you do or justify it.” Her eyes tighten. “Know what’s going to happen next?” 

“No,” she says after trying to shake her head.

“You’re gonna be all alone real soon,” Rio tells her. “Those girls of yours will break. Whatever truce you’ve got with your ex won’t last. He took your babies away once, who says he won’t do it again? Turner’s out there. He feels so strongly about you that he was willing to call an ambulance for me. You think he’s gonna let you go just because you didn’t shoot him that night?” Rio shakes his head. “He’s gonna come for you and he’s going to tear you apart. Not to mention, all the shit I was holding at bay.”

Her brow twists in confusion.

“I’m not the only game in town, Elizabeth. Far from it,” he tells her, leaning a little bit closer. “You’re about to find out how vicious it is out there.”

They’re so close now that she has to tilt her head back to glare up at him and there it is - the cold fury that drew him to her in the first place. 

“You think you’re so smart,” Rio whispers, “that you don’t need to listen to anyone else. Now look what it’s gotten you.”

“What, now you’ll kill me?” She practically spits at him.

Rio laughs, letting his breath brush right over her face. “No. I’ll let you bury yourself and then, when you’re almost all the way under, you’ll come back crying to me, asking me to fix it, just like you have every other time that it all gets too tough. Maybe, you offer me enough and beg real pretty, I’ll give you a hand. Maybe I’ll just stand back and watch you drown.”

He lets go of her and steps back. “That’s twice now, I’ve handed you the gun,” he says. “There’s no third time. You want it, you gotta take it yourself. I’m done doing your dirty work.” 

Rio reaches into his pocket and sets her necklace - the same one that she’d left for him the warehouse, the one he’s been holding onto - down on the table, coiling the pearls as he lowers them. 

He walks out the door, leaving her in her kitchen to think over what he’s just said. He’d meant every word too. She’s already up to her neck. A few more steps and she’ll be floundering. 

Rio’s tired. He wants to go home. Have a quiet dinner and read Marcus a bedtime story, just like he’s been doing every night, letting his son cling to him even when he accidentally puts pressure on the still healing wounds. There’s a fearful look in his eyes when Rio makes him go to bed, like he’s worried that Rio won’t be there in the morning.

It won’t go away, that fear, no matter how old Marcus gets. It’s there now - the knowledge that something’s wrong. He knows now that things can be taken away. It’s a lesson Rio hadn’t meant to teach him. Not yet. 

Maybe, he thinks as he drives away from Elizabeth’s house, maybe that’s what happens when you forget who you are. He’d yelled at Elizabeth that she was a drug dealer and Rio had never let himself forget that, never let himself ignore what made him his money. 

But he had allowed himself to live as if the natural cycle of his position hadn’t been set in stone from the very first breath he’d taken after he killed his own predecessor. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown and all that.

Rio doesn’t plan on making that mistake anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Written fairly quickly and unbeta’ed, although I’m in the market for a beta. However that goes. If you think I'm missing a tag or warning, please let me know!
> 
> I have some feelings about the finale. I definitely don’t think he’s dead and if he is…then I’ve got some questions about what clown school the writers went to. I've got some thoughts about where they could be going with all of this, but who knows.
> 
> “If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared” is Machiavelli. (A lot of what Rio says is actually repackaged Machiavelli. It's great.) "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" is Shakespeare's Henry IV.
> 
> Title is a reference to Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”. Star Wars reference is to the Rule of Two.


End file.
